Big Swords, Jesuits, and Bondelswarts

Wilhelmine Imperialism, Overseas Resistance, and German Political Catholicism, 1897–1906

Series:

In
Big Swords, Jesuits, and Bondelswarts, John S. Lowry demonstrates that anti-imperialist resistance movements overseas significantly shaped the course of Wilhelmine domestic politics between 1897 and 1906. In 1898 and 1900, for example, the consequences of Chinese, Cuban, and Samoan resistance permitted Berlin to steer two large naval laws through the Reichstag by enabling the government to garner critical votes from the Catholic Center Party through pro-Catholic gestures overseas, rather than via repeal of the Anti-Jesuit Law at home. By contrast, after 1903 costly uprisings throughout German-occupied Africa generated acute fiscal concerns among Center Party delegates, and African civilian protests against colonial misrule aroused missionary and Centrist ire. Lowry emphasizes that the ensuing Reichstag dissolution of 1906 arose much more directly from African factors than previous scholarship has recognized.

Biographical Note

John S. Lowry, Ph.D. (Yale University, 1999), is Associate Professor of Modern German and European History at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, KY. His research interests include German imperialism, political Catholicism, and church-state relations.

Table of contents

1 A Profile of the German Center Party, 1897–1906 ... 17
2 Anticlericalism and the Scars of the Kulturkampf, 1864–1904 ... 37
3 The German Colonies: Topography, Resistance, and the Catholic Missions ... 55
4 Prologue: The Catholic Center and German Colonial Politics, 1884–1897 ... 97

Readership

All scholars, graduate students, and advanced undergraduate students interested in imperialism, Wilhelmine Germany, political Catholicism, or anticlericalism as well as those concerned with Sino-German or Afro-German interactions circa 1900.